Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said that July 5 is a day of shame and horror in the history of the country, as it was on this day 40 years ago when the nation was hijacked by Bonapartists. “It was on this day that the military dictator began decimating state institutions, privatising jihad and enacting black laws against women and non-Muslims in the name of religion. It was on this day that the nation began its collective descent into anarchy and mayhem – a descent that still continues in the name of religion,” the former president said in a message on the 40th anniversary of the takeover of the country by dictatorship on July 5, 1977.

Unfortunately the disastrous policy of privatised jihad and exploitation of religion for political ends continues to haunt the nation. The need to clearly understand the disastrous consequences of these policies has never been as great as it is today, he said.

Let us on this day vow to reverse these policies, fight the mindset of religious extremism and end the privatisation of jihad and sectarianism that the dictator’s polices spawned, he said.

On this day we reiterate our resolve that Pakistan will have to be a democratic, pluralistic and a moderate country in which there is no place for religious extremism, militancy and sectarianism, he said. On this day let us also resolve that dictators and usurpers of people’s rights and freedoms must be punished, he said and added “they will be”.

Asif Ali Zardari also paid homage to the martyrs of democracy. “On this day my thoughts also go to those martyrs of democracy who suffered and sacrificed during that black period of our national history”.

Our thoughts also go to those who have laid down their lives and suffered otherwise in fighting the extremist mindset and militant ideology, he said.

Published in Daily Times, July 5^th , 2017.